Right or Reconciled? by Joseph Garlington

Author:Joseph Garlington
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780768456431
Publisher: Destiny Image, Inc.

Chapter 7

See the Tower That God Is Building

When Adam fell through sin, he messed up more than his own life; he messed up the whole earth. That is why we read in Romans chapter 8 that all creation is waiting for the manifestation or revealing of the sons of God. It’s not just men and women, boys and girls, but all creation—including the lions, the gorillas, the baboons, the chimpanzees, the leopards, the cheetahs, the elephants, and the physical earth itself.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now (Romans 8:19-22).

All of creation is groaning and asking us, “Look, why don’t you people get your act together?” Paul gave us a picture of someone waiting on tiptoes when he said all creation is “anxiously longing” and “waiting eagerly.” The entire world is saying, “When are you people ever going to come and help get us sorted out?” (This isn’t a request for a “rapture drill”; it’s a request to hear the gospel of hope and to see it lived out in real life.)

God is reconciling us and the world to Himself. Look at this quote entitled “The Actual and the Ideal.”

“There are two things, the actual and the ideal. To be mature is to see the ideal and live with the actual. To fail is to accept the actual and reject the ideal. And to accept only that which is ideal and refuse the actual is to be immature. Do not criticize the actual because you have seen the ideal. Do not reject the ideal because you see the actual. Maturity is to live with the actual but hold on to the ideal (emphasis added).”1

What do we do with the ministry of reconciliation? In a divided society the Church must model unity. To put it in a more personal way, “In a divided society, I must do my part to model unity.” The big challenge we face as ministers of reconciliation is that we are constantly confronted by the actual situation on earth while trying to model the ideal that we find in Scripture. We are constantly praying, “God, how can we reconcile these two?” That is what the ministry of reconciliation is all about.

We are called to obey God above all, but how can we obey Him if we don’t understand what it is that we are supposed to do? Let me illustrate this from the Garlington family storybook. Say that for some reason you come up to me with the news that you have found a piece of clay that has just been “smushed,” as our kids used to say.

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